


fLow

by Nope



Category: Firefly
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-09-28
Updated: 2009-09-28
Packaged: 2018-11-06 01:51:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11026104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nope/pseuds/Nope
Summary: "Talent is like electricity. We don't understand electricity. We use it. You can plug into it and light up a lamp, keep a heart pump going, light a cathedral, or you can electrocute a person with it." -- Maya Angeloustraight course runs fast, but easy rivers meander





	fLow

straight course runs fast, but easy rivers meander, slow grace swinging sinusoidal (insert flow equations, fluid dynamic mapping) all here and there, sloshing over her fuzzy boundaries into otherpeople space, them in her suspended like silt, born, floating, murkymade (simon thinks of disease vectors, of slow cancer) in, not of

so this is her secret (one of a variable number, the output of a function of privacy, dependent on time) that river is to River is to reaver is to REAVER (algebraic proof left as exercise to under-informed students) is to tools fashioned for one purpose now consumed by another

consumed, of course, by the capital o Other, but she, at least, has her anchors, rivets holding her to serenity and Serenity (multiplicity of meaning is an ambiguity inherent in the limitations of communication) kaylee's joy; jayne's lack; simon's restraint; zoe's slow burn; mal's broken edges; inara's lithe grace; book

the book is not something you fix, even when it is broken, so that being whole requires being broken, and, therefore, being broken, she must be whole, save that she is neither book, Book, nor The Good Book (capitals indicate significance) and lacking such revere is neither whole nor broken

but rather, to return, to recap, to review, (a thesaurian necessity) she (riveted reaving river) is something Other, filled with other, bigger on the inside so that she encompasses outside, each folded through (escher meets klein) so that she is the surround of their constellation, the shift of negative space

the metaphor thus extended, necessitates (by virtue of orbital mechanics, Newton large and Einstein relative) that they must revolve (minimax analysis proves inadequate for relationship dynamics) in patterns as invisible as they inviolable, a mutual construction of intersecting forces, first attracting, then repelling (gravitation is, after all, constant) and so

we may trace (evolving as systems do) both kaylee here and simon there intersecting in inward spiralling orbits, mal and inara like comets whirled around an unforgiving sun, zoe cast out alone, jayne some big gas giant, greedily sucking in everything around him regardless of revile (for even celestials dance)

but also, simon revolves around mal, mal around them all, book through them on a placid orbit all of his own, except there's inara swinging by, and here's jaunty jayne, and simon again, and sweet dancing kaylee and her peaches so that we must revoke the simplistic idea of planets

the point in this instance anyway being not individual relationships, but sum totals (emotional, physical, spiritual) expressed as a gestalt entity, as a country that is rivery (though all rivers are capital-r River) (perhaps) (she hopes) so that she may define herself by the perturbations she causes in their cartography

by the books which are riven that she can fix, by the hair that is hidden that she may hide from, by the seat she takes that once held another, by the subtle flinch and glare and frown, by the stories he tells because she likes to hear, outside, inside

so that she is not just the problem, the menace, the goal, not simply your sister the reader, simon, or the crazy girl, jayne, though she is also those things, has facets like jewels, like the diamonds glinting in inara's necklace as brushes soothe through their hair, makes her tangible

because she wants to be, she wants to be that real girl, not a collection of discrete parts moving in close formation, not the stream she was, that told little stories of carnivores and consumption, not little mei-mei, always such a kidder, a ribber, ha ha, hee hee, ho ho

who exists now as some kind of existential rival, some ontologically perfect construction of self that she is endlessly forced to compare herself against, her now self, this jumble of things all sliced through, intersecting, inter-slotting, containing, contained, what she once was shattered like glass on the Academy stones and

but maybe she was wrong before, and the metaphor should have held, because what she needs is structure as chaotically bound as the n-body problem, as timed as a dance, for she does so love to dance, this little raver, to dip, skip, and twirl until there is only motion

but (again) dancing is a step from fighting (she diverges and converges infinitely) and she does not wish to be tangible here, here with the blades in her hand, little whirlwind, dervish, reaper, for if this too is river (is reaver) then she must accept as certain other instances and

once, he brought her rivel, small dumplings cooked in broth, and showed her the buttons to press and the levers to pull and let her play with his dinosaurs, and, if she is solid, then she is not merely warming the seat but usurping it because you can't wash away

if she is solid then book is not merely absent but gone, the stones are not symbolic, and she is not the dancing fire (plasma, dynamic, anathema to touch) and you can't revive is the point, you can't revive what is lost, not any of them, and certainly not her

solid hurts but to be nothing is worse, and, yes, if she is real, then all is real, all is fixed, and what happened to her really happened, there is a rail between river-that-was and this-that-this, and she is the rider, locked on that track, with all horror, all hope

but the track doesn't end, it keeps on, serenity flies true, because of them, zoe and kaylee and simon and mal and you can't go there, you can't go on into the future without the past, or it's all just pieces, a riddle with no solution and so -- and so --

straight courses run fast and easy rivers meander, but they all reach the ocean in the end, which is a different sort of whole, a whole with history, not river, but containing her, made greater than, a construct formed of their mutual strength, not bound, but released, to soar, together


End file.
